Category: public collections

The sculpture at Slindon will be unveiled here on 17th February 2016 at noon as part of a family event. The National Trust’s Rise of Northwood – the replanting of the majority of a historic woodland lost in the first and … Continue reading The naming of a South Downs sculpture

The A3D project’s legacy stone engaged local people over the three months I worked it on site. During the final days, possible names started to come to me but none seemed quite apt. The thoughts of the creator and viewer may be entirely different – sculpture speaks to you as a result of what you project onto it rather than you needing to ‘get it’. For this reason, having something simple, ambiguous (non-confrontational and non-leading) seems essential to allow viewers not to be channelled when they are quite capable of using their own senses. Conversely, having a name which leads … Continue reading Naming a Hindhead public sculpture

A new sculpture sits on the course of the former A3 separating the National Trust’s Hindhead Common and Devil’s Punch Bowl, GU26 6AB, following a snowy launch on 23rd March. During the course of the final 10 days working, lots of words started to come to me but none quite seemed to fit a final name. A sculpture may speak to you as viewer in an entirely different way to me as creator – and so it seems a fun idea to see how others will view the piece, be they the children associated with the project, locals, or those … Continue reading Can YOU name a new landmark?

We use the term gut feeling as a visceral emotional reaction to something; often one of uneasiness. However this does not originate in the stomach but in the subconscious, which sends a message through the vagus nerve to the stomach. Half of our nerve cells are located within the gut and these are an important factor in our intuition. The gut feeling then travels throughout the nervous system and is experienced by the whole body. I started the Devil’s Punch Bowl stone at Hindhead last week. In the three months of planning for the sculpture, I had agonised over where the block … Continue reading Bovines and gut feelings

In 1951 Duncan Carse, the voice of ‘Dick Barton – Special Agent’, a BBC serial thriller with a huge daily audience, abruptly gave up his radio acting career to lead a six-man private Antarctic expedition during 1951-52 that planned to make the first accurate map of South Georgia. It failed to achieve this, but Carse organised a second party in 1953-54, and then a third in 1955-56. Finally, his persistence was rewarded in 1958 by the publication of a map by the Directorate of Overseas Surveys which remained the definitive map of the island until 2004. Alec Trendall was geologist on the South … Continue reading Dick Barton, the mapping of South Georgia… and a solitude experiment

Lady Philippa Scott sat as part of my environmental series of heads in early 2007. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust – that she and husband Peter Scott had been so instrumental in founding – have just taken delivery of a bronze of the terracotta head, which will be unveiled in summer 2011. This will commemorate her life and work, after she passed away in 2010 at the age of 91. Click on the picture to see The Guardian’s obituary. Continue reading Scott bronze to Slimbridge

The first bronze of Duncan Carse is now on permanent display at South Georgia Museum, South Atlantic, following a purchase appeal co-ordinated by the South Georgia Association. The role of Duncan Carse in the Grahamland Peninsular Expedition was recognised by the Silver Polar Medal and clasp in 1939. He was awarded a second clasp in 1982 for the leadership of the South Georgia Surveys, the mapping of which was of immense value during the Falklands conflict. After the war, he was one of the voices of the BBC Radio star Dick Barton, Special Agent and he continued as a broadcaster on both radio and television … Continue reading Duncan Carse – South Georgia